Fluids often are sold to retail consumers in containers having removable lids. For example, liquid laundry detergent typically is packaged in a container having a removable cap. Accordingly, when washing a load of laundry, a person may remove the cap from the container and pour a measured amount of detergent into their washing machine.
There are a number ways of measuring the amount of detergent to use in a load of laundry. Among others, one method involves pouring the detergent into a graduated measuring cup. Although it is simple to do, this method often leaves some detergent in the measuring cup. As a result, this method both wastes some detergent and causes inaccurate amounts of detergent to be added to the washing machine. In addition, soiling an additional component (i.e., the measuring cup) further complicates to the overall laundering process.
The art has responded to the problem of requiring separate measuring cups by adding graduations directly to the laundry detergent caps themselves. The caps thus effectively become graduated measuring cups. Despite the benefit of eliminating an extra component, however, this solution still suffers from many of the same problems that arise when using a separate graduated measuring cup. For example, the cap still may have residual amounts of detergent left in it after use, consequently causing both the above noted waste and inaccuracy problems. In fact, this solution has an additional problem; namely, when re-attaching the cap to the container, residual detergent left in the cap often spills onto the outside surface of the container or on other nearby surfaces (e.g., on top of a working surface or on the base). Accordingly, although this solution eliminates an additional component, it adds an additional complication and still suffers from many of the same problems.
In fact, this same problem is pervasive across a number of other consumer and commercial products and thus, is not limited to liquid laundry detergent, which is discussed above by example only.